Ogurayama fumoto no nobe no hanasusuki honoka ni miyuru aki no yūgure

English Translation

At Ogura hill
on the moor below the slope
the flowering grass
can just be made out, faintly
in the evening of autumn

Meaning

On the moor at the foot of Ogura the plumed grass can just be made out: an evening in autumn.

Commentary

Book Four Autumn Poems I 347

Headnote: as in the preceding poem, topic unknown.
The second poem on pampas grass, on the grass barely visible at evening. The original gives no fresh headnote.
The poet is recorded only as unknown.
The time is an autumn evening; the place is the foot of Ogura in Yamashiro Province. Teika's ninety-first poem in Book Two also takes the ridge of Ogura, there turning a place known for its maples into a spring scene.
The occasion of composition is not recorded.

The first line raises the place. Its name contains the sound of the word for dim, which answers to the faintness below.
The second line moves the view from the hill to the moor beneath it.
The third line names the grass in ear.
The fourth line means barely visible, the word used in Kintsune's hundred and fifty-sixth poem in Book Two. In the half-light of evening only the white plumes show, indistinctly.
The poem closes on a noun. It shows a scene in which nothing happens and stops there; the same ending recurs in the famous poems of Book Five. The poem that follows also begins with the word for faintly, and the two share it.

Author

Unknown Poet

Source

Shin Kokin Wakashu

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